The full-page ad in the New York Times that the Catholic League did on Cond‚ Nast’sVanity Fair (October 26) led to some interesting interviews and correspondence; the online site of Brills Content featured the league’s extended statement on this issue. We also stumbled on some interesting information concerning Vanity Fair’s previous editor-in-chief, Tina Brown (who now heads the Miramax-backed publication, Talk), and the magazine’s current chief, Graydon Carter.
Last year, when Brown was with the New Yorker, she was approached by one of her writers, Paul Wilkes, who suggested a profile on a Massachusetts rabbi. When Wilkes described the rabbi as “a seeker of truth,” Brown’s “eyes glazed over.” She then told Wilkes, “How about a profile of Bruce Ritter?” Father Ritter, who recently died, left Covenant House after charges of pedophilia were made.
For his part, Carter, when questioned about the Christopher Hitchens attack on Mother Teresa that appeared in 1995 in Vanity Fair, had this to say: “It’s strange in this country, because if Mother Teresa had been a Jewish icon we couldn’t have published it.”
